Holy fire glyph is probably a dps loss. Due to the GCD being after you cast not during you lose 1 gcd of 20% smite per holy fire.

But if you don't have the glyph, that GCD is just taken up by the HF cast, right?

I.e.

Glyph
Holy Fire -> wait GCD > Smite

UnGlyphed
Holyfire -> wait cast time > Smite

Or are you implying that the HF buff will fall off the target one GCD early, thereby losing a single smite at the very end of the dot?
Because that seems more like a situation where haste would come into play to determine how many casts of smite one can get in on a single HF.

Stats/Gear -I stack crit and haste( no need for hit/mastery/spirit). 2 set shadow dps bonus!Glyphs-Holyfire/Smite/Lightspring Glyph (to still simultaneously toss out healing, used as a small healing cd)(could swap out for SW glyph for heavy mobility fights though generally those won't be good for holy dps)Talents-Halo/Divine Star works well. Not sure yet if Infusion/ToF is better. Mindbender all the way!

This spec has - AmazingOff-Healing Halo/Divine Star + Mastery, Divine Hymn, Lightwell/Spring. What you lose is the 5% haste buff to raid(assuming no other hybrid caster).

Holy fire glyph is probably a dps loss. Due to the GCD being after you cast not during you lose 1 gcd of 20% smite per holy fire.

VERY interesting thought!

Let me try to do some theorycrafting in a 2 second cast time of Holy Fire + 7 seconds duration of the holy fire debuff duration window.
Visualized as such:

For this theorycraft session, the damage from smite is X, and the damage from Holy Fire is Y.

With no haste, counting the HF GCD and a smite as a GCD equivalent, you can fit in 4.6 GCDs during the 7 sec HF debuff duration.
With the glyph, one of those GCDs are lost to the HF cooldown, the rest can be spent smiting.

To fit in 4 smites into that 7 second interval, you need to take those 4.6 GCDs up to 5 GCDs, which require around 7% haste. Easy. Everyone has this!
To fit in 5 smites you need a lot more haste. But as we will find, haste is actually a bit irrelevant, interestingly enough.

So I will calculate three areas of interest.
- Damage done in the first 2 second interval
- Damage done in the next 7 second interval up to the last smite. All this will be boosted by the smite glyph
- Damage done in the last fraction of the 7 second interval. This will not be boosted by the smite glyph since that smite lands after the debuff vanishes.

I'm going to ignore haste for now, and that means simply:

First 2 second interval
With no HF glyph, this time is fully occupied by casting Holy Fire.
With the HF glyph, this period of time will always be filled with smites.

Actually we do that HF cast in this period if we didn't take the HF glyph, but let's ignore that. We always cast HF exactly once during the investigation anyway.

The next 7 seconds
With no HF glyph, you can smite away. In 7 seconds, you get off 4 smites fully, and 1 second of a smite not fully.
With the HF glyph, you spend the first GCD paying for HD, then you can smite for the remaining 5.5 seconds. That means 3 smites fully, and 1 smite not fully.
Since the GCD and Smite cost exactly the same time, we basically always end up with exactly one less smite done with the HF glyph.

Since the difference is always going to be exactly one smite in difference, and that difference smite is always buffed, the damage difference here is always 1.2X, regardless of haste.

But how does this hold up with non-0 values of haste?

Surprisingly, haste doesn't matter. The theory is quite simple. With more haste, the last 7 seconds just ends up with more buffed smites being cast. But also a faster GCD. So the damage difference will always remain at 1.2X. More haste certainly increases the damage, but you still only lose 1.2X damage in this area.

And similarly, the first 2 second interval also doesn't matter. It's easy to see if you just shorten that interval from 2 seconds to "whatever time is needed to cast holy fire". You will find you get the same amount of smites - 1.33 - off in that timeframe regardless of haste value.

Summary
Interestingly enough then...
With the HF glyph you gain 1.33X damage due to having more spare time to cast smite instead of HF.
With the HF glyph you also lose 1.2X damage due to having less boosted smites going on.

By taking the glyph, you always GAIN 0.13X damage every HF cycle. As such the glyph is a (very minor) net DPS gain.

So... I don't think the HF glyph actually matters at all for a smite DPS spec. The damage gain is incredibly small; equal to 0.13 smite casts every time you cast Holy Fire. Assuming you smite for 50k, that's 5.6k damage, or 560 DPS assuming you cast HF on cooldown. Which you won't unless you have a perfect haste balance. That's... not really noteable, and worth only a percent or two. Then again, there is not really any better glyph to take in a dps scenario is there? I for one like my HF instant

Very interesting read Danner, although there is something you probably haven't taken into account into your theory. The Holy Fire buff is also a DoT, and therefore it has its own haste breakpoints, ie, min and max durations of the dot. However it's probably a very minor issue that isn't really worth looking into anyway, but im just saying that there might be some sort of a haste sweet spot to get or sour spot to avoid...

Anyway the topic of Holy DPS has recently been a huge discussion topic, hope you don't mind me linking your post to the US forum.

Fun fact for sure, I'm gonna give it a shot on my SPriest. However, if you want to keep Holy DPSing and not only for fun, don't forget you have to be in Shadow spec for Elegon and Sha of Fear, if you still want the trinkets ofc.

Hope it doesnt get nerfed, it will be nice to have a non-optimal but fun spec to play in LFR or w/e

Went holy tonight for the lulz. Except for the major fails on p2 zor'lok it was fun. Did not beat my rank on windlord as shadow tho, but I was on dispell duty this week so that combined with hymning may have made up the lost dps.

Very interesting read Danner, although there is something you probably haven't taken into account into your theory. The Holy Fire buff is also a DoT, and therefore it has its own haste breakpoints, ie, min and max durations of the dot. However it's probably a very minor issue that isn't really worth looking into anyway, but im just saying that there might be some sort of a haste sweet spot to get or sour spot to avoid...

Anyway the topic of Holy DPS has recently been a huge discussion topic, hope you don't mind me linking your post to the US forum.

Sure, go ahead.

Also: Good point!
To be honest, I have no idea how DoT durations are calculated anymore. It's been one of the murky topics since they changed it in cata. I absolutely cannot explain why my HF dot duration is listed as 7.30s ingame, for example.

I do not think it should matter though.
After all; this duration will increase or decrease the duration of the DoT equally for the glyphed and non-glyphed usecase. The only difference is if you spend that first GCD in the DoT duration as a Smite or as a GCD. And that means the theory above still works out.

Your comaprison doesn't seem to take into account the effective cooldown reduction to HF by the HF glyph.
For an instant the maximum rate you can cast it at is 1/cd while it is only 1/(cd+ct) for a spell with cast time (ct). Since only Smites you finish before the dot expires are buffed (as opposed to Smites you start before the dot expires). Also, didn't Holy fire have a cd of 10s (you seem to have used 9s).

Actually from my estimation you always seem to loose damage with the glyph (unless you have to move, obviously).

If you have the glyph you can cast 1HF, complete 3S before the dot expires and then cast another 2 unbuffed S (if you'd cast 1 you would have 1s left of the CD of HF; the dps of the whole circle is not twice than that of S so you will want to cast it instead of waiting). You start the circle anew after 10.5s -> your dps is 0.095*d(HF)+0.533*d(S) (d(HF) meaning the damage of one HF, d(S) damage of one S).

Without the glyph each circle consists of 1HF, 4 buffed S, and 2 unbuffed S (again you wouldn't want to waste a second doing nothing) and you would start over after 12.5s. -> your dps is 0.08*d(HF)+0.624*d(S)

0.095-0.080=0.015; 0.533-0.624=-0.091 => you loose damage.
The glyph would be better if HF did more than six times the damage of S (Since 0.015*6<0.091).

If you had the perfect haste value to fit 7GCD in 10s this would change to 0.100*d(HF)+0.460*d(S) and 0.083*d(HF)+0.566*d(S); 0.100-0.083=0.017, 0.460-0.533=0.106; and d(HF) would still have to be more than 6 times d(S) for the glyph to be a gain while standing still.

Guess it was only a matter of time? Seeing that Holy doesn't need any Hit, spells costs practically no mana with the DPS Chakra and you can basically just stack Int, Crit and Haste as much as possible. No need for Spirit or Mastery, really.

Going to feel SO bad for this person when it gets nerfed, and yes, it WILL be nerfed. I don't think they want Holy to be a good DPS and allow great healing.

Thanks Noradin, that is a very good omission that I did not take into account in my model!
And one that IMO is important enough to warrant inclusion.

Basically: the glyph allows you to have a HF cycle every 10 sec, but unglyphed only every 12 sec. Give or take with haste.

This point should if anything however count towards making the glyph even better. By fitting in more HF cycles per minute, your DPS should go up!

So if I say that the glyph is giving a very minor DPS gain without considering your point, and you rightfully call me out on saying that I forgot something that would make it even better... but conclude that the glyph is then worse... then my ghostbuster sense starts tingling

I think you simply mixed up the cases.

--

No haste, no glyph:

In 12.5 seconds, you can do one Holy Fire + 7 GCDs which I guess we will all be using on smites. 4 of these will be boosted, 3 won't be.
Given your notation, that means

Comparing those...
Glyph scenario wins due to offering both more HF dps (0.095 > 0.08) and more S dps (0.628 > 0.624).
As I pointed out earlier, the smite difference is rather small... but the HF difference is quite a lot noteable.

So... TLDR version: Glyph is good (tm)

Disclaimer: barring any math errors. Poke holes in it until it bleeds!

Not far off what shadow does on that fight though. Looking at a random top-100 shadow log for that fight gives around 80k dps and 20k hps for shadow. Seems like holy is a viable alternative, with a possibly better clutch save from DH (though on some fights VE might be better).

Add to that the fact that even with reforging out of haste (which you wouldn't be doing anyway if you're going holy dps), decent gear + raid buffs will give you enough haste to get off 4 smites during the Holy Fire debuff with the glyph. Of course, eventually you'd get the point where you can get 5 smites in without the glyph and 4 with it, but I'm not sure what haste figure that would be at. Regardless, the glyph should always be a dps increase.

Am i missing something? I'm a disc priest so most of my gear is full of mastery, but I'm only pulling 30k DPS as holy. With chakra and the glyph. What am I doing wrong? I'm smiting my face off. I do more DPS as disc, but my smite actually heals. or was this nerfed? .\

Am i missing something? I'm a disc priest so most of my gear is full of mastery, but I'm only pulling 30k DPS as holy. With chakra and the glyph. What am I doing wrong? I'm smiting my face off. I do more DPS as disc, but my smite actually heals. or was this nerfed? .\

well mastery gear is super bad for dpsing, and you should be using holy fire, Sw:P and death, mindbender and you llv 90 talent in addition to smite.